Without complete feeling in right hand, FCSL standout crafts MVP-worthy season

A window at his friend Justin Moody's house shattered as Palmer tried to open it, a piece of glass slicing two nerves in his right arm. Three days from signing a contract with the Marlins with a $600,000 bonus, the feeling in Palmer's forearm and hand were gone.

"The first thing I was scared of was bleeding to death," said Palmer, a second baseman for the Sanford River Rats of the Florida Collegiate Summer League. "The doctors said I should have."

Doubts also surfaced about whether Palmer could play baseball again, let alone at a level that led the Marlins to select him in the fourth round of the draft two years ago. The prospect from Odum, Ga., who could throw a baseball 97 mph from shortstop to first base and turn around a 95-mph fastball into a prodigious home run, could not grip a ball after the accident on July 16, 2011.

While the feeling in his hand has not returned fully, Palmer is the favorite to win MVP honors in the 10-year-old league after tying an FCSL record with nine home runs, six more than any player, and setting a new standard with a .643 slugging percentage.

Palmer topped all players with 32 RBIs and hit .350, four percentage points behind league leader AC Carter of the Winter Park Diamond Dawgs. Palmer will lead Sanford into Game 1 of a best-of-three playoff series at Leesburg at 7 Wednesday night.

"Opposing coaches tell me all the time he's the scariest hitter they have ever seen in this league," River Rats coach Ken Kelly said.

With a scary injury. Palmer, who had signed with the University of Georgia out of high school, used Moody's shirt as a homemade bandage as blood formed a 100-yard trail from Moody's house to Palmer's and then created a pool in the car on the way to the hospital.

Two surgeries and extensive rehabilitation, which included putting beads on a string, grabbing rice out of a bucket and playing with silly putty, returned the strength in his forearm and hand but not complete feeling.

"He absolutely refused to be defeated by an injury that everyone else would have walked away from the game with," Kelly said. "He's got that kind of character."

Palmer, who is right-handed, said he can't feel a baseball's laces when he throws it.

"It's like I can feel the ball, but I really can't feel it," Palmer said.

Palmer returned to play baseball at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, Ill., in 2012 and earned National Junior College Athletic Association Division II All-America honors. He batted .395 with 28 RBIs and 48 stolen bases.

"It was like an old friend I hadn't seen in a while," said Palmer, who sat out last season while having surgery and will play for Seminole State College next season.

Said Carmen Carcone, who scouted Palmer for the Marlins and has stayed in touch: "He had all the tools we were looking for in a young shortstop. We did everything we could after the accident. It was just tragic to see it happen."

Palmer refuses to be counted out.

"I'm going to be a really good story when I get to the big leagues," Palmer said.